What the Latest Facebook Update Means For Your Brand Page

A new Facebook update has once again put pressure on brands to share images every time they post on their Facebook Page.

The social network has changed its algorithm to reduce the number of “text status updates” from Pages – not from friends – that appear in your news feed.

According to a post on the Facebook blog, testing showed that individual users post more text status updates when they see an increased number of text status updates in their news feeds. Except this wasn’t the case when it came to text updates from Pages, which motivated the algorithm change.

What You Should Be Posting

“Page admins can expect a decrease in the distribution of their text status updates, but they may see some increases in engagement and distribution for other story types,” according to the blog post.

The other story types they’re referring to means more images and videos. It was always a best practice to include appealing imagery or videos when posting to your brand Page on Facebook. Now, however, it’s basically essential.

Facebook provided the following as an example of what is commonly done right now:

That format — a text post with an outbound link — will now receive a lower ranking and far less attention from Facebook when it comes to user home feeds. In contrast, Facebook suggested this as an example to follow:

The focus on including a visual aspect to the post is clear. The blog states that these types of posts usually receive increased engagement as well. That said, the two examples shared by Facebook show an increased number of likes on the text post, which seems a bit counter-intuitive for brands.

In the end, the algorithm change shouldn’t drastically altar your Facebook strategy. You should still be engaging with users in the comments and you should still be sharing high-quality, visually powerful content. This should probably include an increased use of Instagram images, which you can bet will get a higher ranking from Facebook now that they own it.